Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Moira, Tess, and Ash were gathered around my worktable when I finally made it in to work. An anticipatory silence hung in the air while all three grinned at me.
“Nope,” I said by way of greeting. “We are not doing this.”
Moira cackled. “Aw. Spoil sport. We know you’ve been up to some serious nonsense. Aren’t we your besties?”
I rolled my eyes and set my purse behind the register. “We’ve been seeing each other for a couple of months now. Are you ever going to stop asking me?”
“Absolutely not,” Ash said.
I gave him a look. “And here I thought Moira was the one corrupting you all.”
“She’s seventy-five percent of it.” Ash winked and returned his attention to the small bonsai he was putting the final touches on.
I came over and nudged Moira over so I could take a look. “That’s stunning,” I breathed.
Ash was a dryad, and his knack was nature magic, most powerful with trees. His bonsai work took months and sometimes even years, but they sold for thousands. “Why is it blooming so late in the season?”
“Because I’m a dryad.”
Moira laughed.
I shook my head ruefully. “Dumb question,” I admitted. “But it’s October. Azaleas are spring bloomers, so I’m curious why you forced it to bloom?”
“Much like you,” Ash said as he snipped a tiny, almost microscopic piece from the bonsai, “I can coax flowers and trees into blooms.” He smiled and straightened. “But this one has been happy from the moment I brought her into this shop. She’s been blooming on and off for months now.”
I reached a finger out and paused. “May I?”
Ash gestured to go ahead. “Be my guest. She’s yours after all.”
I gasped. “Mine?”
Ash told me a long time ago he was creating one for me, but after months had gone by, I’d forgotten about it.
He inclined his head. “A Satsuki azalea. She normally blooms in May, but as you can see, she’s prone to express herself.”
I pulled the rolling stool over and sat down, gently touching one of the blooms. Sending out the tiniest pulse of magic into the small trunk, I closed my eyes to get a read on her.
Gentle, feminine energy. Young. Happy.
A smile tipped my lips up. “She’s ecstatic to receive so much attention.”
Ash chuckled and stroked a finger down its trunk. “I think you should consider keeping her in the shop. She likes all the traffic and how much we’re all together.”
“Should I keep her in the window?”
Ash nodded. “Normally, these are outside plants, but this gal has the advantage of having two nature mages in close proximity. She’ll be fine as long as we check her every few days.”
“Thank you so much,” I said, meeting Ash’s eyes. “She’s gorgeous.”
“You’re welcome.” He jerked his head toward the window. “Want help carrying her over? The pot weighs a ton.”
Together, we carefully lifted the new bonsai and made a place for her in the shop window, carefully rearranging some of the other flowers until we had her right in the middle.
She looked a little odd with her soft pink flowers in the middle of all the oranges, reds, and yellows of our fall display, but it made me laugh.
The bonsai was gorgeous and showy, and she’d bring in foot traffic just because people would be curious about her.
Tess floated over, stopping beside Ash. She hadn’t said much this morning, but that was her way. The banshee rarely spoke unless she had something to say.
“Have you seen your mother?” she asked.
I blinked. Tess had a line on Cliona’s location most of the time because my mother was Queen of the Banshees. “Not since that night on Caelan’s land.”
“You’ll see her soon,” Tess said before floating away.
“Alright,” I said slowly. “Thanks for the warning, Tess.”
The banshee passed right through one of the walls, headed to the break room, I assumed.
“Is she okay?” I whispered to Ash.
Green eyes met mine. “Her powers have been acting up some. I think she’s gaining some new aspects of her magic she didn’t expect. It’s thrown her off a little.”
“Does she need help?” Tess had a strange variety of powers, most pertaining to the dead, but she could do other things that didn’t seem to fit in the banshee wheelhouse.
Much like my friend Moira, who was leaning against the register, watching us.
“I got it,” Ash promised. “If we need you, we know where to find you.”
“At Caelan’s,” Moira quipped.
I tossed a shed leaf at her, giving it a bit of extra oomph with my magic. It caught in her hair and stuck, the glimmer of orange bright against her dark tresses. Her grin widened as she plucked it out, turning it to and fro. “You’ve gotten control of your magic. Cool.”
I had. A teeny tiny part of me wondered if all the extracurricular activities with Caelan had calmed my Chimera down so much it lay like a content cat inside me.
Moira’s eyes glimmered. “You know what helps humans and paranormal alike when it comes to exerting extra energy?”
“Moira!”
“S-E-X,” she spelled, grinning like a lunatic.
“I wish I had a bucket of leaves I could throw at you,” I muttered.
“She’s not wrong,” Ash said.
“Et tu, Ash?”
He snorted. “Physical activity always helps when there’s an excess of power built up. While Moira rightly assumes it’s sex—”
“Can someone please kill me?” I whispered.
“Even a good workout regimen should help.” He smiled. “So if things don’t work out with Caelan and you don’t have another boy toy to take his place, maybe you can take up running.”
“I’m going to walk out the door and come back in again, and we’re going to start the day over and pretend this never happened.”
Moira came over and slung an arm around my shoulder. “Party pooper. There’s no shame in a good, hard—”
I ducked under her arm and hurried toward the back doors, plugging my ears with my fingers. “La la la la la!” I cried.
Even through my plugged ears, I could hear their laughter.
A few hours later, I’d scratched a good portion of my to-do list off and had even managed to finish Hattie’s weekly delivery. Setting the large bouquet of sunflowers and dahlias to the side, I pulled up the week’s work orders and almost choked when I saw it.
“Yeah,” Moira said, rightly assuming what I was looking at. “Your little romance with the Shifter Lord is good for business. We’re booked solid for months.”
“Shit,” I whispered, my hands pressing on either side of my face.
Moira stilled. “Evie?” She leaned back and stared at me. “If you’re thinking about breaking up with him, can you hold off until Christmas?”
I gaped at her.
Moira took a step back and held up her hands. “I’m just saying. We’re bringing in a ton of money, and that hot barista I was telling you about invited me on a singles cruise. If we turn the faucet off now, my bonus will be lower, which means fewer drinks for me.”
I counted to five in my head. “You’re an immortal. You have more money than I do.” My eye twitched. “You can afford to do a cruise every single month for ten years.”
“Yes,” Moira argued, “but I want to do this one, and it’s twice as much.” She laughed and poured herself another cup of tea. “But you didn’t answer the question. Are you thinking of breaking up with Caelan?”
“No.” I sighed. “But things are complicated.”
“They always are,” Ash said. “What’s going on this time?”
This time. Six months ago, things were normal. I was a florist selling bouquets and floral arrangements, and things were great.
“Cernunnos has decided I’m his retirement plan.”
A beat of silence before Ash let out a low whistle. “Queen of the Fae, Evie? That’s a big promotion.”
“An unwanted one. Things are already complicated if my relationship with Caelan progresses.”
“Which it will,” Moira chimed in. “That wolf would handcuff you and drag you to the altar if you allowed it.”
He would. Caelan made no secret he wanted me for his own. I cringed internally every time I thought about what happened on his land. Not because of what we’d done. Never that.
After our tête-à-tête in the woods, I marched arm in arm with the Lord and butt-ass naked over to hundreds of his shifters and agreed with everything Caelan had said about me being their new Lady.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, I somehow had commanded them because I wanted their Lord to myself for a little while longer.
I still had no idea why I’d done it. It felt like I was high or something, and after what Caelan and I had just shared, I had serious stars in my eyes for him. I would have said anything, done anything for him, and I would mean every word.
Then, of course, the real world came crashing back into our love nest.
And I, as usual, was internally freaking out. Again.
“What did you say?” Moira asked. She passed a fresh mug of coffee over, and I took it gratefully, wrapping my fingers around to soak up the heat.
“What I usually say before I get wrapped up in it anyway.” I slumped against the desk. “Although, I think he came around to slowing things down.”
“Really?” Ash sipped from a large water bottle. He might be in human form, but he drank water like an elephant. “I’ve never met a reasonable fae.”
“Hey!”
“Present company excluded,” he added with a wink. “Sometimes.”
“Yes, it’s not like he has a choice. If he wants someone of blood relation to take over, he has to wait for me.” Not that I would. Dealing with my mother was bad enough. Thinking of dealing with all the fae made me want to close myself in a dark room and scream.
Moira’s brows rose. “Are you thinking of doing it?”
I snorted. “Right now? No. Who’s to say what the future holds, but I don’t see myself ever leading an entire faction of people.”
Moira’s lips pursed. “And what about Caelan’s people?”
“Even the shifters.” I groaned. “Maybe I shouldn’t have acted on my feelings.
” Doing so had opened a door I wasn’t sure I could close.
Or even wanted to. But just like me, Caelan came with complications.
I didn’t regret what we’d done, and I cared about the Shifter Lord more than I’d ever cared about anyone else.
“Don’t apologize for following your heart.” Moira topped off my mug. “Now, the store opens in twenty minutes, and you’re on register duty because you’ve been slacking off the last few weeks.”
She winked and tipped her mug at me. “We have an anniversary party in two weeks. I’ll be in the back working on a few of the arrangements, but they specifically requested you to do the main centerpiece. They want one of those automatons like you did for Caelan the first time.”
I gave her a dubious stare. “Hopefully not as involved as the others?”
“Nope. A simple scene, something romantic. I’ll have to check my notes.” She waved and headed to the back, leaving Ash and me alone in the front.
Ash had gone back to his own worktable and was occupied with scrutinizing the branching pattern on his newest project, a Japanese maple bonsai. A cool thread of green magic trickled from his fingers as he coaxed the bonsai to grow the way he thought it should.
I smiled and pulled the register over. Many things demanded my attention today. The least I could do was cross a few more things off the to-do list before I went home.
When I finally made it home, a letter wrapped in vines and divine magic lay tucked inside the screen door.
I set my bag down and opened it right away, not wanting the magic inside my house in case it was something unfriendly.
The parchment was thick and heavy, the ink the message was written with a deep, indigo blue.
The Court of Gods meets in two weeks’ time.
Attendance is not optional.
It was unsigned.